Well, What Might This Be?

I can’t tell you where this picture was taken or the mysterious, unidentified person who sent it to me, but, suffice it to say, it’s a picture of Isabella Moon in paperback–on a shelf, in a store. Remember that if you see such a sight yourself, in the same place, in person, you can email me at laura@laurabenedict.com and I’ll send you magnets of both Isabella Moon and Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts. You’ll also be eligible to win Isabella Moon goodies in March.

Also, if you sign up for my newsletter at news@laurabenedict.com between now and March 15th, I’ll enter you in the drawing for a Fabulous Giftbasket. (Laura from Maryland wrote to tell me she loved the one she received last week!)

So. Why a Fabulous Giftbasket?

One answer would be to entice folks to check out my books, and reward the people who have already shown me such delightful and warm support. Simple enough. There’s a second reason, though.

I won something once–a gift basket from Martha Stewart. It was years ago, and I entered an online sweepstakes on a magazine’s website. In fact, the entry itself was so insignificant to me that I was a little alarmed when I received a rather official-looking envelope from the fulfillment company. It announced that I was the winner of the Grand Prize of Martha’s Wine Country Celebration Basket (or somesuch title–I can’t remember exactly what it was.) I responded right away.

Weeks and weeks later I received a large box that contained a smallish handcrafted basket, a fancy scrapbook-style album in which I could paste my favorite wine labels, a cutting board (for cheese, I presume), four ginormous linen napkins and a Martha Stewart hors d’oeuvre cookbook.

Here were things that I never would have bought for myself and they were all right there in a box in front of me to keep forever and ever. I was so happy! I think the cutting board went to Goodwill in our last move and I re-gifted the wine label album the next Christmas, but I still have the napkins, the cookbook, and the basket. I’m a Martha fan from way back, and I think that she got herself sent to prison as a result of a really bad case of rich man’s disease (in which someone goes to unreasonable, illegal, or foolish lengths to do a famous person a favor–Senator John Heinz, anyone?), but winning that basket didn’t make me think any better of her personally. It was just a random thing that made me feel happy for a short time.

I want everyone to be happy and to feel special in some small way. Always. Totally dorky and idealistic and unrealistic of me, I know. So I don’t spend a lot of time or money on bookmarks and such–I want to give away actual, interesting things like books and Fabulous Giftbaskets because there just aren’t enough opportunities for people to feel special in this world.

Have you ever won anything just because you put your name in a hat?

(Oh, but if you do win anything from me, I’d be so grateful if you’d say nice things about me should I get in trouble for the Isabella Moon photos. Think about it, anyway…)